As House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi was leaving her press conference today, reporter James Rosen asked her, "Do you hate the president, Madame Speaker?"
Pelosi was livid. She spun around and, pointing at Rosen, said, "I was raised in a Catholic house. We don't hate anybody — not anybody in the world. So don't accuse me of that." Rosen replied that he never accused her of anything. Red hot with anger, she returned to the podium where she warned him, "don't mess with me."
Regarding President Trump, she labeled him a "cruel" man. She then went back to the well. "As a Catholic," she said, "I resent you using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me."
Whether Pelosi hates the president, or anyone else, is impossible to say, though labeling him "cruel" surely invites speculation.
What bothers many practicing Catholics is her selective invocation of her Catholic status. Here are a few examples.
- Pelosi is a champion of abortion rights, for any reason, and at any time of pregnancy, including instances when a baby can be killed who is 80 percent born. [Note: The U.S. bishops recently named "the threat of abortion" as the "preeminent priority" for Catholics.]
- Pelosi rejects the Church's teachings on marriage, holding that two men can marry and raise a family (adopted children, of course) in a manner that is no different from the normal arrangement of a man and a woman.
- Pelosi works tirelessly to support bills like the Equality Act that would devastate religious liberty while also undermining the Catholic Church.
- Pelosi will never support school vouchers for indigent minorities, consigning them to public schools that wealthy white people like her wouldn't set foot in.
Pelosi is such a rank hypocrite that she not only selectively, and defensively, wears her religion on her sleeve, she has the gall to call herself a "conservative Catholic."
She would be well advised either to stop rejecting Church teachings on core moral issues, or stop playing the Catholic card to justify her opposition to them.
Dr. William Donohue is the president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The publisher of the Catholic League journal, Catalyst, Donohue is a former Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation and served for two decades on the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author of eight books, and the winner of several teaching awards and many awards from the Catholic community. Read more of his reports — Click Here Now.